


reasons

by jdphoenix



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e04 The Sauna Test, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:38:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: A look inside Billy's head during the fight in the locker room.





	reasons

Billy’s hands are around a little girl’s throat.

It’s the sort of out of body experience he’s been having way too many of lately only these come with all the existential crisis and none of the actual out of body stuff, which would be nice under the circumstances. ‘Cause, see, his hands are squeezing and he can’t control it but he can feel it. The strength in his muscles, muscles he works hard to keep ripped, to grow stronger so that one day he can-

(There’s a film in Billy’s head, one he likes to revisit from time to time. Just little snatches of images like a training montage. Only he’s not training. He’s standing up. He’s throwing a punch. He’s looking down at his dad and calling him a fucking bastard and telling him to get the fuck out of the house.)

-so he can do something. One day. He hopes. But his hands are stronger now than they’ve ever been, stronger than he thinks he could ever build them. And he feels that throat between them, small and frail like a goddamn bird. It wouldn’t take much to snap it.

That’s a thought he’s had before.

Not that Billy’s ever done this before. He’s a prick but he’s got his reasons and there are a few things he’d never actually do.

(He hopes. He’s got this idea he keeps at the edges of his mind that his dad never thought, when he was Billy’s age, that he’d hit a woman and he probably thinks he has good reasons for it too. The dick.)

But he’s thought about it, how easy it’d be for someone without restraint to break a little girl just like this one.

And that’s when it hits him. He could’ve done it. Just a few minutes ago when he broke through the glass she was _right there_. He can see broken teeth, shards of glass like starlight freckles in her skin, that piece of tile skewering her jaw, and her throat, fluttering like a bird against his knuckles, struggling to breathe through all the blood.

It’s so real, so lifelike—and let’s be real here, Billy’s life lately’s been one nightmare scenario after another, the kind that’d make the biggest horror movie nerd this town has to offer vomit in his popcorn, so there’s no telling what’s real and what’s not—that he’s gotta look. He’s gotta _know_.

She’s alive.

Billy’s not sure, these days, whether he’s really alive or not. Nightmares are like that, you know? But if he’s still got a heart in his chest, he can feel it loosen.

It’s not some pansy, sappy shit. Max is his responsibility, his sister— _step_ -sister—his obligation. She’s family, whatever the fuck that means, and the only person in this shit town who’s been where he’s been and sleeps where he sleeps. And yeah, he knows his life would be better without her in it.

(There’s another film in his head. This one all glossy and happy. His car all loaded up. The open road ahead. This town and everyone in it in his rearview, never to be seen again.

Only at the end of it comes a glimpse of Max. All alone with her mom and his dad.)

And Billy’s not dumb, okay? Look at who Max hangs out with. Look at that loser excuse for a boyfriend she’s cowering behind. How many times has she dumped him only to take him back? Just like her idiot mother, the girl’s got no self-preservation instinct.

So he stays when he could run and he’s glad she’s not dead but it doesn’t mean shit, okay?

The thing—the shadow, the guy currently telling Billy’s hands to squeeze and fighting to pull his focus back to that whole murder thing _—_ doesn’t exactly talk. It did that one time, with the road and the phone booth and the nightmare, but in general Billy’s got the idea words aren’t really its thing. Probably it got held back a few times in kindergarten.

Either that or Billy’s just not worth talking to.

So it doesn’t so much _say_ anything as it … imparts? He just knows what it wants him to know, is how it works. And right now, while he’s looking at Max and his hypothetical heart is loosening up, it wants him to know Max is in danger.

She and her friends, they’re a problem for this thing currently making Billy’s life a living hell. But they won’t be, not if this one little girl is out of the picture.

He doesn’t know who moves, if it’s him or the shadow, but he knows it’s him who squeezes and keeps squeezing even when he hears that little gasp like a cry. Turns out he _would_ do this because there’s something else he knows: he’s glad Max isn’t dead, real glad, and that means _everything_.

So he closes himself off to the pain and the hurt in that young face and how it could be her throat he’s squeezing. He’ll do what he has to, even if it means helping this thing kill all her friends, kill everyone else in this shithole town, and he won’t be sorry. He’s got his reasons.


End file.
